Friday, February 18, 2011

Book Review: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones was a novel that I was assigned to read for a literature class. As their home becomes unsafe, Mr. Watts, the only white man on the island of Bougainville, reads Great Expectations by Charales Dickens to the kids of the island. They learn to escape to a world they have never even come close to seeing. Matilda, the main character, feels that she has become friends with Pip and she often imagines his life to take a break from hers. But the rebels and the "redskins" don't let Matilda's home stay peaceful and easy, and Matilda is forced to face circumstances that no child should ever have to experience. I enjoyed this book. It was odd to read a novel about another novel, but I thought it was very well done. It makes the readers realize how powerful literature can be. Something that Mr. Watts teaches his students is that everyone's individual "voice [is] special, and we should remember this whenever we used it, and remember that whatever else happened to us in our lives our voice could never be taken away from us" (256). This quote applies to my Creative Writing class so perfectly; we've been talking about authors having their own unique voice. I have never read Great Expectations, but because of this novel, I plan to.